Will HUD Head Endorse Hillary This Week?

In what promises to be an unprecedented endorsement of a presidential candidate by an incumbent cabinet member, U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julian Castro will reportedly endorse Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign on Thursday.

The Web site BuzzFeed, citing “three sources with knowledge of the plan,” stated that the endorsement will come on Oct. 15 during a “Latinos for Hillary” really in San Antonio, where Castro served as mayor prior to joining HUD. Castro has frequently stepped outside of the HUD realm to defend Clinton—he dubbed the scandals involving her e-mail server and her handling of the Benghazi assassinations as a “witch hunt”—and his name has been frequently floated in the media as a possible running mate for Clinton.

Neither Castro’s office nor the Clinton campaign has made any public comment on the BuzzFeed report.

Should Castro endorse Clinton, it will be an unusual situation where a current member of a presidential cabinet becomes actively involved in an ongoing primary campaign. In contrast, President Obama has made no public display of favoritism to Clinton or the other four candidates seeking their party’s 2016 nomination, nor has he publicly encouraged the push to have Vice President Joe Biden enter the race.